1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid droplet discharge apparatus for discharging liquid droplets of, for example, an ink and an image recording apparatus which is provided with the liquid droplet discharge apparatus. In particular, the present invention relates to a liquid droplet discharge apparatus including a first wiring board and a second wiring board which are flexible and which are arranged in connection with a pressure applying mechanism for selectively applying the pressure in order to discharge liquid droplets from nozzles.
2. Description of the Related Art
An ink discharge apparatus, which is a representative example of the liquid droplet discharge apparatus, includes a plurality of nozzles which discharge the ink and a pressure applying mechanism which applies the pressure in order to discharge the ink from the nozzles. An ink-jet printer, which carries the ink discharge apparatus, is provided with a control board to control the operation of the pressure applying mechanism. The pressure applying mechanism is mechanically and electrically connected to the control board via a wiring member composed of a plurality of flexible wiring boards which are arranged in connection with each other.
In general, the wiring member of the ink discharge apparatus is composed of a COF board which is connected to the pressure applying mechanism and an FPC board which is connected to the control board. The COF board has a connecting portion which is connected to the pressure applying mechanism and an extending portion which is led out from the connecting portion. A forward end portion of the FPC board is connected to a forward end portion of the extending portion by using, for example, a solder. A signal supply section, which supplies the driving signal to drive the pressure applying mechanism, is mounted on the extending portion of the COF board. Further, wiring lines for supplying the driving signal are formed thereon, which extend from the signal supply section to the connecting portion. The plurality of wiring lines are provided corresponding to the number of nozzles in order that the respective nozzles can discharge the ink independently from each other.
In recent years, it is demanded to increase the number of nozzles in order to improve the printing speed and the resolution. In order to respond to this demand, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-53940 discloses a liquid droplet discharge apparatus in which any COF board is abandoned from the wiring member, a signal supply section is mounted one by one on each of two sheets of FPC boards, and the FPC boards are connected to a pressure applying mechanism respectively. Accordingly, the arrangement space, which is required for wiring lines for supplying the driving signal extending from each of the signal supply section, is distributed to the two FPC boards. Therefore, the degree of freedom of the wiring layout is improved.
However, according to this arrangement, it is necessary to mount two connectors on a control board in order to connect the two FPC wiring boards. This results in the large size of the control board, which takes up the restricted arrangement space in an ink-jet printer.